First Trial run for 2008

The team had it's first trial run for 2008 and added our new team member Steve Cork to the mix. We also are working with one hurt team member Robert is currently down in his back and is very limited in his ability to help. Robert is very valuable with overseeing everything and keeping everything sanitized.

Steve has a Green Egg so we have added it to the mix of grills for 2008. We are going to use a slather this year and found that it creates an issue with the size of the smoke ring. We couldn't even get a smoke ring using the egg because it cooked the food too quick. Anyway, we created great tasting food but nothing was turn in quality because of the lack of smoke ring.


Some picture from this weekend:

Easter Pig Roast

The family decided to have a Pig Roast for Easter. So, all of the men agreed to help me with setting up and cooking a whole pig for Easter. The woman got a little nervous about us cooking a whole pig for the first time with a large gathering of people and no other meat being available. Which sort of upset me--- they had didn't believe we could actually cook the pig properly. So, I agreed to smoke some chickens as well as the pig for Easter. This was a blast I used the the 3 guys from Miami setup. Web site: http://cuban-christmas.com/pigroast.html



I was able to order the pig from Publix's in McKays Mill. The Pig weighted about 60 lbs and needed a week to thaw out at the store. So, I order the pig three weeks in advance of Easter.


We didn't butterfly the head because no one was interested in that area of the hog ---I know some people really like the head.

The Pit really worked on roasting the pig. I didn't use the same method as the Cuban Guys on creating heat. I created coals from Hickory in another pit and added the hot coals to the pit and added apple, maple, and oak chunks to the fire to create a nice smoke.



Here is a picture of the pig after cooking



Pictures at the turn:



Here is what I learned about the pit the concrete cinder blocks will radiate heat and once they were warm they started pushing the heat into the middle of the pit and that is the reason the pig is darker on the middle section than the outside which was the location of the fire.

Pictures of the turn in boxes

BBQ Contest -Gaylord Fiddlin and Brewin

The big day came for our first contest, We felt good about the items we had learned from the practice run that was only two weeks before and we had a good schedule and learned a lot about the actual cooking process as a team. Little did we know that we were not prepared to cook against the competition teams.

Items that we were ready for:
1. We had all of the items like knives, tongs, gloves, cutting boards, tables, tent, wash station, meals, drinks and etc… We didn’t have items that we had to leave the contest to retrieve.
2. We had a good schedule and everyone knew their responsibilities.
3. We had no surprises about how the contest was going to be run. Thanks to the book: Competition BBQ Secrets
Items that we weren’t ready for:
1. We really didn’t know what the products should look like during turn in
2. We struggled getting our food up to temp because our smokers weren’t as nice as other smokers.
3. How nice all the other teams are to you during competition.
4. How much fun you actually have during the event.
5. Getting a nice looking product as well as tasting good.

Use the first event as a learning experience and ask question to other teams because they will help you with suggestions. We have to give a big shout out to South Pork and Pig Smokers in Paradise for all the help.

We finished the first competition 73 out of 78 and received some scores of 9 on chicken and brisket. We didn’t get disqualified and we scored average on almost all over our products.

Here is what we found out later:
Chicken – cooked to dark, need to cook the glaze into the skin
Ribs - Have no idea – extremely tough but the meat should leave a mouth bite in the meat. Cook the glaze into the meat
Pork Butt – Good bark but needed to rest at least 1 hour
Brisket – we over cooked the brisket because it was falling apart it should have some give.

Some pictures:

Preparing for the First practice run

The Team was able to have a practice run before the BBQ. The team had a lot of items to work thru before the practice run:

1. Work on T-shirts and aprons with our names
2. Needed a Tent at least 10X10 -really needed two - one with side walls-use to relax. Sam's has a great deal on tent
3. Needed tables to prepare food - FYI - Use PVC pipe cut at 13" to increase the height of the table - tables from Sam's plastic top rectangle and pvc from Lowes with cap on end.
4. Buckets - used for storage, clean water, bleach water. We used Home Depot buckets and glanvized buckets with large mouths for cleaning our cutting boards and knives
5. Grill - Needed three smokers - 2 650sq cooking briskets,butts, and ribs. 1 used one for chicken. then we had a weber round grill for lighting fires and dinner
6. Lights- couple lights -Nice big spot light that can be hung- like a shop light and flashlights
7. Need something for ashes - ash bucket and shovel
8. Water hoses and electrical cords
9. Need something that you can level your grills in case ground unlevel
10. Knives and scissors
11. Weights for tents in case your on Asphalt or concrete
12. Fan or Heat depending on temp.
13. Nice large cutting boards - Sams or Academy Sports
14. Determining wood - Academy Sports
13. Create a schedule- see example
5:30:00 PM Wednesday Pick-up grilles at Page's
8:00:00 PM Wednesday Complete Rubs
8:00:00 PM Wednesday Complete Sauce

5:30:00 PM Thursday Butcher Block meats
8:30 PM Thursday Complete Mops

9:00:00 AM Friday Load Ken's truck -Ken's House
10:00:00 AM Friday Load Robert's grill
11:00:00 AM Friday Grab Lunch
12:00:00 PM Friday Arrive at Gate for event
1:00:00 PM Friday Meat Approval
2:30:00 PM Friday Area Set-up
3:00:00 PM Friday
3:15:00 AM Friday Rub down Butt and inject
3:30:00 AM Friday Rub Down Brisket and inject
3:45:00 AM Friday Ribs in Cider and Lemon
4:00:00 PM Friday Chicken in Italian Dressing
4:00:00 PM Friday Cook Meeting/add table cloth after clean-up
5:00:00 PM Friday Regroup/after cook meeting
6:00:00 PM Friday
7:00:00 PM Friday Start Fire one grill and Weber/Gates open
7:30:00 PM Friday Mickey and Motorcars
8:00:00 PM Friday Start Butt and Brisket -one grill/cook hamburger
8:10:00 PM Friday Dinner Hamburgers
9:00:00 PM Friday Cross Canadian Ragweed
10:00:00 PM Friday
11:00:00 PM Friday
12:00:00 AM Friday Mop

1:00:00 AM Saturday Start fire for Ribs -other grill/Mop
2:00:00 AM Saturday Rub Ribs and mustard binder and add to grill/Mop
3:00:00 AM Saturday Mop
4:00:00 AM Saturday Mop
5:00:00 AM Saturday Start fire for Chicken/soak chips/prep smoker/Rub Chicken/ Mop
6:00:00 AM Saturday Breakfast/Mop/chicken to grill
7:00:00 AM Saturday Mop
7:45:00 AM Saturday Start Chicken chimney
8:00:00 AM Saturday wrap ribs in foil with mop/wrap brisket in foil mop
8:30:00 AM Saturday Add chicken chimney
9:00:00 AM Saturday Mop
10:00:00 AM Saturday Remove all meats and start fire in Weber for finishing needs
11:00:00 AM Saturday regroup/crisp skin
11:30:00 AM Saturday START PLATING CHICKEN
12:00:00 PM Saturday Chicken turn in/Gates Open
12:10:00 PM Saturday START PLATING RIBS
12:30:00 PM Saturday Rib turn in
12:40:00 PM Saturday START PLATING PORK
1:00:00 PM Saturday Pork turn in
1:10:00 PM Saturday START PLATING BRISKET
1:30:00 PM Saturday Brisket turn in
3:00:00 PM Saturday Bobby Flay Demo
5:00:00 PM Saturday Awards


Items we learned at the practice run:
1. We didnt want to be worrying about breakfast on turn in day. So we just had breakfast bars.
2. We couldnt use all of the cooking area and need to do somethign with the opening for smoker box to food box. We used a alum pan to keep flames from reaching the food.
3. We couldn't use the split wood at Academy sports because we couldn't control the temp. in the food box. The big piece caused temp to soar into the 400 degree range.
4. It rained during the practice run and we lost about 30 degrees during the rain. Also you need your items off the ground because alot of items got really wet.

5. We practice our turn in process. 30 minutes flys during turn in. We had one person preparing the turn in boxes and two people cutting and determining what to tpieces to turn in. Also the team gets a little tipsy at this point in the process so be sure to have this defined.

6. We really struggled with ribs. We just had no idea what to do with them.



Here are some pictures






Example of our practice turn in box:

How The Thillerz on the Grillerz was created summer of 2007

All,

I had worked with Robert Guisinger and Page Thompson for at least 7 years. We had attended cooking classes at Viking in Franklin over the years and had a great time. We all love to cook from gourmet to simple open fire cooking. I had noticed an Ad for a BBQ contest at the Gaylord Hotel in Nashville for last weekend in September and I guess it was around May. At the time only Page owned a smoker and it was a very small upright water smoker. We all agreed that this was something we wanted to try even thought we really had no experience in smoking meat in a real wood smoker.

So over the next couple of months, Robert and me bought barrel smokers from Academy Sports and started using them to cook butts, ribs, and brisket. Page was working on the chicken using his smoker. We researched on to cook using smokers and what a BBQ contest would be like for beginners. They had a backyard classification but we decided that if we were going then we would do all four meats (butt, ribs, brisket, and chicken).

Picture attached is my first fire in smoker box -Too hot and burned box